University of South Carolina Libraries
8 Game.ScheduIe MEN’S TENNIS vs. Ole Miss, 2 p.m. WOMEN’S TENNIS at Ole Miss, 5 p.m. Pnntart BASEBALL at Vanderbilt, 8 p.m. OUII ldL»l WOMEN’S GOLF at Bryan National Intercollegiate Story ideas? Questions? Comments? in Greensboro, N.C. E-mail us at gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu <■ . -. < = =s : ■ ~ ,t as ■ — Baseball looking for momentum USC needs wins in Vandy series BY JOEL WALLACE THE GAMECOCK The USC baseball team travels to the laqd of Vanderbilt this weekend to engage the 25th ranked Commodores in a three game series. The Gamecocks (21-4,2-4 SEC) are ranked sixth in the county, but that doesn’t mean very much if they’re still at the bottom of the SEC East after this weekend. USC is 0-2 in conference series this year, losing at home to LSU and on the road to Arkansas.'If the Gamecocks drop another one this weekend, it could be a long road back to the top. TTCP xxrill non oomo ofortina rotation it has the past two series, with junior right-hander Billy Buckner (4-0) taking the hill on Friday. The Saturday starter will be right-hander Aaron Rawl (5-1). Southpaw Matt Campbell (5-1) fin ishes up the weekend Sunday. The Commodores (20-5,3-3) en ter Friday’s contest riding a six game winning streak and a 17-1 record at home. The more im pressive streak, however, is the Gamecocks’ 21 consecutive victo ries over Vandy, dating back to 1997. USC also leads the all-time series 33-6. Vanderbilt’s rotation for the weekend opens with Jeremy Sowers (4-1), followed by Jensen Lewis (4-0) Saturday and Ryan Mullins (3-1) Sunday. The Gamecocks hope they can continue to count on outfielder Michael Campbell’s colossal con tributions on offense. The sopho more was named Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week for his performances last week. He hit five home runs in four games and drove in 10 runs whild'going 8-for-16 at the plate with six runs scored. His three home runs against Wofford tied a school record as the Gamecocks easily dispatched the Terriers, 12-1. The USC-UNC game scheduled for Wednesday night was post poned until May 11 because of rain. The Battle of the Border would have pitted the sixth ranked Gamecocks against the 20th-ranked Tar Heels. -_i_i_1_i_ _ i_ i iic i iv aii j ucivvccii uic ivvu teams has grown tremendously over the past two seasons, as the Gamecocks have been the team that ended the Tar Heels’ season and, consequently, their hopes of a berth in the College World Series. Ticket holders should hang on to their stubs, as they will be hon ored when the game is made up at Charlotte Knight* Stadium in Fort MiU. USC starts the series with Vandy at 8 p.m. Friday. The Saturday game, scheduled for 3 p.m., will be televised on Fox Sports Net with Dave Neal and Larry Conley in the booth. Sunday’s finale will begin at 2 p.m. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu PHOTO BY MARK SCHILUNG/THE GAMECOCK Arik Hempy pitches against LSU. Hempy has a 2.13 ERA and allowed four hits this season. Halfway between heaven and hell A We’re at the halfway point \ on the calendar between the hideous end of the last foot ball season and the slightly less hideous beginning of next seaspn. The scars of the Clemson “incident” have fad ed but will always remain. It seems like only yesterday I walked de spairingly all the way from the sta dium to my dorm in full STEVEN USC march VAN HAREN ing band Second-year gear, elec mechanical t = b = engineering trie Dass in student hand. J Spring " training re pui nave icnimucu uie ui uux football team’s very existence and pushed this abysmal November memory to the fore front of my mind. The passage of time softened the blow, but the very idea of the 2004 season kickoff makes me undeniably nervous. It’s five months away, but that’s a long gun barrel to stare down. I quiver with fear when I think about how many games we’ll come down to a field goal and how many times we’ll choke like Tennessee Williams on the bottle cap of life. So how are we doing months later? The team is healthy, but it has a few injuries from^ spring practice: two wide re ceivers are out for not being “wide” enough; Jimmy the towel boy is out after blotting up too many kicking-game messes; and head coach Lou ♦ VAN HAREN, SEE PAGE 9 USC alumnus launches Web site against columnist Gamecock fan says Ron Morris should be fired BY JONATHAN HILLYARD THE OAMECOCK At approximately 11 a.m. Wednesday morning, USC grad uate and Columbia resident Wally McLendon launched a Web site — not to get a sports coach fired, but a sports colum nist. On his Web site, McLendon ac cuses Ron Morris, a sports colum nist for The State newspaper, of writing columns biased against Gamecock head football coach Lou Holtz and the USC football pro gram. The site, www.FireRonMorris.net, had more than 4,000 hits after approx imately 31 hours. McLendon is urging the news paper’s subscribers to cancel their subscriptions immediate ly “It’s offensive to me that I can’t subscribe to my hometown paper, because'they trash coach Holtz in there constantly and I feel like I can’t support that,” he said. “I am just one Gamecock fan that had enough and couldn’t take any more.” Morris says he has no such grudge -t_±- TTnlin gram, but it is his job to voice his opinion, no matter how unpopu lar it might be. “I don’t have a vendetta against Lou Holtz, and I have stat ed numerous times that I think Lou has done any number of great things for the football pro gram and the university since he’s been here, hot the least of which is give the pro gram unprece 1 ” UV111VU 1UA11U11U1 I, VVUgimiVit, Morris said in a phone interview with The Gamecock. “To believe that I have some sort of personal vendetta against him is a little far-fetched.” McLendon, a 1993 USC gradu ate, has been living in Columbia “I am just one Gamecock fan that had enough and couldn’t take anymore.” WALLY MCLENDON FOUNDER OFWWW.FIRERONMORRIS.NET C-i-T-11 ~_ A~.~4.~A ~ ~4-i ~~ ~ for approximately five years and claims to have been a subscriber to The State for about 13 years. On his Web site, McLendon claims a column Morris wrote prior to the football program’s signing day was aimed toward repelling recruits from USC and was placed above a story of greater importance. “The Panthers had just beat en the Rams to advance to the NFC Championship, and their placement was below Ron Morris, and that is unaccept able,” McLendon said. “I felt like the timing of the article was in tentional to be right before the signing day.” Morris denies the claim that his column was used as a tool to hurt USC’s recruiting class and says he was simply doing his job. f “The column was written at a time that was shortly after the bowl season in the wake of all the firings. So the purpose of the col umn was that Lou Holtz had a mess on his hands, and at that time he did,” Morris said of his Jan. 10 column. “I wasn’t going to wait till after recruiting, because I am not in the business of helping ♦ WEBSITE, SEE PAGE 9 PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK Stacey Johnson fell to 9-4 in a loss to Tennessee on Tuesday, giving up seven hits in the game. Carolina aims for improvement in SEC series against Kentucky BY WES WOLFE THE OAMECOCK The No. 23 USC softball team has gone through a rough stretch and will try to rebound in the Gamecocks’ home series with Kentucky this weekend. Carolina should have a solid chance at winning its first SEC se ries of the season, considering the Wildcats haven’t exactly been suc cessful against conference oppo nents this season. Kentucky is 4-14 against other SEC schools this season, with an overall 18-18-1 record. USC, while having trouble thus far against conference foes, has still managed a 6-9 mark in the SEC and an over all 17-11 record, winning the series against Mississippi and sweeping Arkansas. The only real trouble for Carolina has come in the last two series, which were swept by Auburn and Tennessee. Once again, though, the Gamecocks shouldn’t fret, com pared to the Wildcats. Kentucky was also swept by Tennessee, in ad dition to dropping all three games of the series against Georgia. UK hasn’t had the opportunity to get swept by Auburn yet, as the Wildcats play the Tigers at the end of the season. Also, if it weren’t for Kentucky, USC would be in last place in the SEC East. One of the pitchers Carolina is likely to face over the weekend is sophomore Amy Kendall, the 2002 Miss Softball in Indiana. Kendall led Kentucky in every statistical category last sea son but has struggled this year, posting a 7 UKat 10 mark in 25 ap n ij pearances. vsdrUIIIld Kendall also has 1 p.rn. a 2.99 ERA over Saturday 105.1 innings Beckham pitched. She al Field lowed one hit and struck out _ one batter in six innings, allow ing no runs against Eastern Kentucky on Wednesday. All USC pitchers — Stacey Johnson, Melanie Henkes and Aleca Johnson — have an ERA lower than Kendall’s. Johnson, who has pitched only 17 fewer in nings than Kendall, has allowed 39 fewer runs and 37 fewer earned runs. To become equal with Kendall’s performance, Johnson would have to allow a little over two and one-quarter runs an in ning in each of her next 17 innings. Johnson has also struck out 11 more batters than Kendall while facing fewer people at the plate. Johnson, who is likely to pitch this weekend, has a 0.64 ERA over 88 innings with a 9-4 record. Also, out of the pitchers on both teams, Johnson is the only one not to have given up a home run this season. Henkes will probably also see action this weekend but has by far allowed the most runs on the team with 34 — including 24 earned runs — going into the series with a 2.88 ERA over 58 innings. Carolina will start the Saturday doubleheader against Kentucky at 1 p.m. in Columbia at Beckham Field; the second game is set to start at 3 p.m. The final game of the series will be Sunday at 1 p.m. Commentspn this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu